EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: yashrk on January 10, 2018, 01:12:04 pm
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Hey Guys, I have few questions. :-BROKE
1. I am confused between two scopes series of Keysight 3000 and the 4000 series except for the bigger size screen what is the difference? :-//
2. I am looking for a scope with a minimum of 500MHz B.W. (with the option to upgrade to 1GHz if needed) and 4 channels with the serial debugging option.
I am looking to buy either MSO3054 OR MSO4054 (depending on the answer to the first question)
or R&S HMO3054
or TEK MDO3054
All with serial decoding.
I am working in automobile embedded field and I need the device to debug embedded systems which are used in engine testing.
Thank you guys in advance :-+
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Hello yashrk,
the 4000x series reach 1.5GHZ on the most powerful model, has the USB2.0 signal quality test options and of course the bigger screen.
On page 3 of this pdf http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5990-6619EN.pdf (http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5990-6619EN.pdf) you can find the table with all the differences.
Hope this help.
0xfede
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Which oscilloscope do you prefer between these 3 oscilloscope ?
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There is no good choice here. R&S: small screen, Tektronix: slow user interface, Keysight: short memory.
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The Tektronix MDO3000 is slow and unpleasant to use, it has a fair amount of memory (10Mpts IIRC) and could not perform spectrum while working in time domain and viceversa. The SA part is not that powerful.
The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).
I don't know how the R&S HMO performs, never had the occasion to try one.
Personally I would not choose any of these DSO but if in need I'll take the Keysight.
Since these devices are expensive I suggest you to ask for a demo unit and try it.
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Wavesurfer 3054 perhaps?
http://teledynelecroy.com/oscilloscope/oscilloscopemodel.aspx?modelid=8558&capid=102&mid=504 (http://teledynelecroy.com/oscilloscope/oscilloscopemodel.aspx?modelid=8558&capid=102&mid=504)
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Considering the same (or lower) price range which oscilloscope will you suggest
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I am not familiar with LeCroys, but it seems to have the least compromise among the candidates. If it is possible to ask for a demo unit from some or all manufacturers, that would be absolutely critical to make such decision.
I personally like Keysight's responsiveness and overall features, but the small buffer is a turnoff for what I do.
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Spec wise Lecroys is better but Lecroys is not hugh in India and may be my company might not go for it.
I don't see other option other than Keysight for me
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Wavesurfer 3054 perhaps?
http://teledynelecroy.com/oscilloscope/oscilloscopemodel.aspx?modelid=8558&capid=102&mid=504 (http://teledynelecroy.com/oscilloscope/oscilloscopemodel.aspx?modelid=8558&capid=102&mid=504)
According to Jportici this one is also dog slow. And like every Lecroy: no peak detect and that will bite you in the ass sooner or later.
Personally I'm waiting for Keysight and/or Tektronix to release new oscilloscopes based on faster platforms. Currently there is nothing out there which offers a significant upgrade over what I have now.
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How about Rigol MSO 4054 ?
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or TEK MDO3054
Well, using the TEK MDO3054 in a smal lab while also using some LeCroys at customers site - do not buy the MDO if your budget allows.
Using oscilloscops since 40 years I haven`t seen such a stupid, slow UI on a unit with such a large pricetag...
on the other side - you are located in India, so - please don`t get me wrong - I assume that upgrading the MDO1014 form only 4 chanels and nothing else to a MDO3054 with all options (decoding, SA, Logicanalyser etc) with the help of a little phytonscript found somewere here on eevblog could be a good option...
Michael
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or TEK MDO3054
Well, using the TEK MDO3054 in a smal lab while also using some LeCroys at customers site - do not buy the MDO if your budget allows.
Using oscilloscops since 40 years I haven`t seen such a stupid, slow UI on a unit with such a large pricetag...
on the other side - you are located in India, so - please don`t get me wrong - I assume that upgrading the MDO1014 form only 4 chanels and nothing else to a MDO3054 with all options (decoding, SA, Logicanalyser etc) with the help of a little phytonscript found somewere here on eevblog could be a good option...
Michael
I would of thought of doing that :-DD if it was my personal scope but it's for my work and my company is German so I don't think that will go well with our management
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I would of thought of doing that :-DD if it was my personal scope but it's for my work and my company is German so I don't think that will go well with our management
:-)
Then your german company should buy you a LeCroy HDO6104 with the required options - forget the pricetag... it`s worth the money. Be sure to buy the dual screen option...
Beside a nasty display-bug where Teledyne/Lecroy Austria and Germany are not willing to support any kind of fixing (They decied to ignore my customer after several mails, even when they accepted that it is a really ugly bug) it it is one of the best oscilloscopes I ever used.
Michael
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Keep in mind that if you buy the Keysight 500 MHz scope the upgrade to 1 GHz is a replacement of the mainboard - there is no software/firmware upgrade. The Keysight is also very nice to use - I recommend it if the memory won't be a problem for you.
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How about Rigol MSO 4054 ?
I have a Rigol DS4014 which works well for my needs. It has some minor UI bugs but I did not run into any decoding problems. The product line is limited to 500MHz, thus this may be a killer factor for you. I would say that, if the price is right, it is a good purchase for the hobbyist.
In your case, however, I suspect you would reduce the risk with the long term support and warranty of a more established brand. Also, you can bring the corporative power to the table and negotiate with the multiple vendors from a better position than, say, a hobbyist.
Your company is from Germany, where LeCroy is well known but perhaps they may have a soft spot for R&S - nctnico's point about LeCroy is a good one, although some may disagree (there are dozens of discussions about this subject on the forum - just search for "peak detect LeCroy").
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From memory, 3k vs 4k Keysight: 2-ch Arbgen and integrated LAN. Some options.
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If I am going for LeCroy, how about 4054A-MS or WaveSurfer 510?
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I never had a Lecroy scope but IMHO the MAUI touch interface is beautiful. Then the HDO4054 with 12 bit of vertical resolution (but 8.6 ENOB) seems a great device but again, I had never played with it.
Maybe you should provide some infos like:
What's the primary use of your MSO?
What do you plan to do with it?
Are you sure that you need an MSO or maybe a DSO + logic analyzer is better?
Best,
0xfede
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As 0xfede mentioned, the two models you mentioned differ from the presence of the integrated logic analyzer, therefore you will need to carefully consider if this is preferred instead of, say, extra bandwidth.
On paper the HDO4054 seems to be a better oscilloscope, but not having used these models I can't tell anything about their practical aspects. The 510 seems to be a single-man-band and not part of a family of products, thus it may either be on the verge of being discontinued/replaced.
On paper all three (including the Wavesurfer 3000) use the highly regarded MAUI interface (which is quite awesome in my experience as well), but as nctnico mentioned (and some older threads mentioned) the Wavesurfer 3000 seems to have been full of bugs when it was released. It seems there are no recent reports of users of this model. One thing that may contribute to the issues seen then is the fact the Wavesurfer 3000 is not manufactured by LeCroy, thus the processing power may have been underestimated.
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510 has a option to get serial decoding I checked that with their local distributor. I am actually thinking to final the lecroy scope I am just waiting for the quote from the lecroy then just pass the final decision to my boss between Keysight and LeCroy 4054 any way it's win win for me
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How about an S-series from Keysight btw? (I have an DSOS104A for sale)
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On paper all three (including the Wavesurfer 3000) use the highly regarded MAUI interface (which is quite awesome in my experience as well), but as nctnico mentioned (and some older threads mentioned) the Wavesurfer 3000 seems to have been full of bugs when it was released. It seems there are no recent reports of users of this model. One thing that may contribute to the issues seen then is the fact the Wavesurfer 3000 is not manufactured by LeCroy, thus the processing power may have been underestimated.
The WS3000 was a joint venture between LeCroy and Siglent with LeCroy having strong input into the design and firmware. Western market rights are LeCroy's and the Siglent variant is sold in China as the SDS3000 series with models to 1 GHz.
http://www.siglent.com/oscilloscope/SDS3000 (http://www.siglent.com/oscilloscope/SDS3000)
Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned) had much positive to say of WS3000 in this class of instrument.
Plenty of info on the forum, hunt it out. ;)
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Hi,
I for one cannot recommend you the WS3000, though I have to point out that I have not used other scopes you're considering. We have the 350MHz model with some decoding options and the waveform generator. Lecroy has sales quite often and we got this model for a reduced price and with (some) free options. It's a nice scope, looks the business, but it's really slow and can get unresponsive to the point where it's drives you mad if you have to work on it for more than 5 minutes.
If you have just the basic main screen and you're capture waveforms, it actually works great and quite fast. As soon as you add measurements to one of the channels (like frequency), the speed drop is really big. If you add a more advanced trigger, or add any of the math functions... the scope get's painfully slow, up to the point that you have to wait for a few seconds just for it to respond to a knob turn or a touch on the display.
I don't know about other scopes, but this one does all of the measurements in software, without any FPGA acceleration. It's an Windows Embedded based scope. I don't know what processor it's using, but LeCroy really should have spent more on the CPU as it's the main bottleneck. If they only spent an extra 20$ on a more decent CPU, this would have really been a killer scope.
Hope that helped narrow down the choice for you,
Regards
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Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)
I didn't know that. :-- That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...
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Whilst searching for information on a particular silly scope I came across a few of his recent posts on another forum, I forget which forum it was now but the discussion was in relation to one of the a Siglents.
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There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.
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Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)
I didn't know that. :-- That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...
Even though he gave Siglent plenty of shite, some of it justified, he said it like it is and had sufficient experience to back it up.
Certainly a good source and wealth of knowledge on LeCroy gear and if nothing else he'll be missed for that.
He was called out by Simon and Dave and threw his toys for a few months but came back and contributed for a while until he rattled someones cage once too many times and it was for Dave the last straw.
I looked back through his posts and couldn't spot anything too controversial but there must've been something that tipped the balance.
Last I heard he was to beta test the new Siglent SDG6052X IQ 500 MHz AWG.
A loss to the forum IMHO.
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There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.
When I spoke with them some time ago, complaining about RTB2000 being nice but not quite there (no 50 Ohms, etc, etc..) they hinted that if I'm not in a hurry, I might wait for 1st quarter, because they are planning to release a new scope a bit above RTB2000... I guess it would be replacement for HMO3000 series....
If they make it on the same platform as RTB2000 but a bit "upgraded".. that would be serious problem for MSXO3000 series.....
Regards,
Sinisa
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Whilst searching for information on a particular silly scope I came across a few of his recent posts on another forum, I forget which forum it was now but the discussion was in relation to one of the a Siglents.
There's a few hits on Google and it seems he's active here:
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/members/wuerstchenhund.471615/
There's some stuff on LeCroy's there too if you go looking.
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A loss to the forum IMHO.
Agreed. He used to split hairs here and there, be somewhat on the rough side but overall he provided quite good source of information.
Whilst searching for information on a particular silly scope I came across a few of his recent posts on another forum, I forget which forum it was now but the discussion was in relation to one of the a Siglents.
There's a few hits on Google and it seems he's active here:
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/members/wuerstchenhund.471615/
There's some stuff on LeCroy's there too if you go looking.
Thanks for sharing. That is good to know.
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Thanks for the update on R&S guys!
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There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.
When I spoke with them some time ago, complaining about RTB2000 being nice but not quite there (no 50 Ohms, etc, etc..) they hinted that if I'm not in a hurry, I might wait for 1st quarter, because they are planning to release a new scope a bit above RTB2000... I guess it would be replacement for HMO3000 series....
If they make it on the same platform as RTB2000 but a bit "upgraded".. that would be serious problem for MSXO3000 series.....
I doubt that. The RTB2000 still has several bugs left to fix almost a year after it was introduced and no real hurry to fix them. R&S = Rigol & Siglent :-DD
On a more serious note: R&S scopes tend to get very expensive if you add a few options. The base price is low but it is easy to add 100% of the base price by adding just a few options.
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I doubt that. The RTB2000 still has several bugs left to fix almost a year after it was introduced and no real hurry to fix them. R&S = Rigol & Siglent :-DD
On a more serious note: R&S scopes tend to get very expensive if you add a few options. The base price is low but it is easy to add 100% of the base price by adding just a few options.
I only repeated what I was told... And RTB2000 is completely new platform, I think they will fix it eventually..
I do agree with you they are not as professional about it as you would expect from a tier 1 brand...
And yes, on a more serious note, you sound like Keysight gives their options for free.. They all do this stupid extortion game....
It annoys me to no end...
Regards,
Sinisa.
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There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.
When I spoke with them some time ago, complaining about RTB2000 being nice but not quite there (no 50 Ohms, etc, etc..) they hinted that if I'm not in a hurry, I might wait for 1st quarter, because they are planning to release a new scope a bit above RTB2000... I guess it would be replacement for HMO3000 series....
If they make it on the same platform as RTB2000 but a bit "upgraded".. that would be serious problem for MSXO3000 series.....
I doubt that. The RTB2000 still has several bugs left to fix almost a year after it was introduced and no real hurry to fix them.
None of the bugs at release were particularly serious, and most of them were fixed in the last release, though that did take a while to appear.
I would hope that any higher-end model has hardware that can provide a faster UI, but would expect it to be based on the same software platform. There is plenty of space inside the RTB2000 case.
March is traditionally Keysight Scope month - I wouldn't be surprised to see something new - maybe they will have something new. The existing ASIC is starting to show its age on the memory front (no, I've not heard anything, just seems like something ought to happen in the not-too-distant future)
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The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).
If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time. Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.
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The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).
If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time. Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.
There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.
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Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)
I didn't know that. :-- That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...
A loss to the forum IMHO.
For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.
Over time I’d also come to the conclusion that he must be insufferable to work with, knows it all and makes sure you know he does too. He asked me for some help once in a PM for his scope, rather than on the board iitself, I assume he used a PM to avoid being exposed as someone who had that terrible weakness of not knowing everything adter all.
For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.
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There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.
Agreed, that's a definite weak point.
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Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)
I didn't know that. :-- That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...
A loss to the forum IMHO.
For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.
Over time I’d also come to the conclusion that he must be insufferable to work with, knows it all and makes sure you know he does too. He asked me for some help once in a PM for his scope, rather than on the board iitself, I assume he used a PM to avoid being exposed as someone who had that terrible weakness of not knowing everything adter all.
For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.
FWIW
While I somewhat agree with your POV's (and I was going to address them individually), ones online persona doesn't always represent the person behind the keyboard.
I had only a couple of incidences of PM's to and fro and I found personal contact with him entirely civil.
Not that it makes any difference now......consigned to history.
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Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)
I didn't know that. :-- That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...
A loss to the forum IMHO.
For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.
For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.
This is going wildly off-topic but I want to add this:
I can imagine you feel that way but on a forum you have the choice to engage or not to engage with certain people depending on the topic (and certainly when a discussion goes round in circles). Wuerstchenhund appearantly couldn't do that and I'm under the impression some people where keeping circular discussions alive on purpose. Which leads me back to the choice people have to engage or not. It takes two to tango.
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The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).
If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time. Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.
There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.
What is wrong wit the reference traces?
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The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).
If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time. Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.
There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.
What is wrong wit the reference traces?
You can't move, seperate or scale them. Most other DSOs have up to 4 seperate reference traces you can (at least) enable/disable. Moving, scaling and using the reference trace as input for math are very usefull additional features. On the Agilent MSO7104A you get a white line on screen and that's it and I doubt it is any different on the current Megazoom ASIC based scopes.
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The Lecroy scopes are always nice in hardware, but I've always found the UI somewhat clumsy, looks pretty but it never quite seems to work out right. Definitely ask for a demo unit if you're planning to buy one.
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Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
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Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
That depends on your application.
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Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
That depends on your application.
Yes, and as I mentioned before that I want to use it mainly for embedded application decoding serial lines (say spi, i2c, can) and some general electronics work, looking at analog sensor data, etc.
It will be helpful if you could give me examples where deep memory or sampling rate will be important.
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Wavesurfer 3054 perhaps?
http://teledynelecroy.com/oscilloscope/oscilloscopemodel.aspx?modelid=8558&capid=102&mid=504 (http://teledynelecroy.com/oscilloscope/oscilloscopemodel.aspx?modelid=8558&capid=102&mid=504)
According to Jportici this one is also dog slow. And like every Lecroy: no peak detect and that will bite you in the ass sooner or later.
Personally I'm waiting for Keysight and/or Tektronix to release new oscilloscopes based on faster platforms. Currently there is nothing out there which offers a significant upgrade over what I have now.
Couple of months ago i was demoing a wavesurfer and a keysight 3000 and 4000 (because the rep had that one available).
The lecroy was much more advanced that the keysights.. histograms, the math options, the persistence options, the ability to add decoders after the acquisition :P many of the things you could do with the lecroy you could do them with the keysight 6000 series
however,
-touch screen was a resistive type piece of shit, felt very cheap and was completely inaccurate even after calibration, also had a very laggy response. meaning that you must use the scope with a mouse, there are things you cannot do easily with buttons
-once you enable longer memory traces the UI slows down a lot. more and more lag between pressing a button and getting the feedback, this for me was already enough to give it back.
-since the scope is clearly underpowered, wavescan was also a joke. wfm/s dropped down to the tens (acquire, scan all the waveform for the pathetic list of events available then rearm the trigger) and you can do the same things in other scopes, because it's a castrated version with few options
-the decode options were the usual ones, what we really needed was available on the HDO4000+ scopes (3 times the base price)
-the awg was a complete joke, you can get a better one for a tenth of the option price
the keysight on the other hand..
- 4000 series has a bigger screen BUT it's only bigger, resolution is the same because the waveform area is drawn by the ASIC. 4000 series also has 2 AWGs IIRC
- Touch screen on these one was.. WOW. a proper capacitive screen. and THIS is a scope with an interface designed for touch.
- The AWG is perfecty usable on this scope, it's more or less equivalent in frequency and resolution to what you could get for the same price. Plus, it's completely integrated in the scope and with a couple of steps i can save an acquisition and replay it, also the FRA. I call this a good compromize
- The amount of decoding options. which of course has also what we needed.
and for the bad stuff:
- Keysight frontend is very noisy
- Short memory
- can't decode data after the acquisition (however i can with infinuum software, but that's another whole lot of money)
- math is somewhat limited but not as much as other scopes in this class
- no histograms
- persistence is meh, i prefer the hot-cold type
i didn't even consider Tek or R&S for a second, because i would get a newer TDS2000 -in terms of options, math, etc- for the same price as the keysight.. pass. I already have a TPS2000 in the lab, don't need a new one without the isolated inputs :P
In the end i found the keysight to be a good compromize between all aspects (UI,AWG,Options versus memory,math) and during the evaluation period that scope was atually used to do real work wether the lecory almost just stayed there and look pretty.
Consider also that to me 100 MHz bandwidth is enough, i can live with slower samplerate (hence the 1MS memory can be enough) but i want the advanced options and math that still comes with higher bandwidth scopes only.
Basically what we needed was a more advanced all-rounder. The keysight was the perfect fit. if we need something special, we can always ask for a loaner for a couple of weeks/month
i was really disappointed because i like lecroy a whole lot, at home i have an older model (which i'm looking forward to sell and get a waverunner 2 or something newer if i can afford one)
I wish lecroy would make a GOOD scope for us, but apparently they don't care for this segment, which is understandable. they are replacing everything with the -much more expensive- 12bit HDO line, leaving out only the scopes they don't care about
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Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
Hi,
good comparision, but one short correction. The sampling rate of RTA and RTM is 5 GSa/s.
Markus
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Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)
I didn't know that. :-- That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...
A loss to the forum IMHO.
For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.
Over time I’d also come to the conclusion that he must be insufferable to work with, knows it all and makes sure you know he does too. He asked me for some help once in a PM for his scope, rather than on the board iitself, I assume he used a PM to avoid being exposed as someone who had that terrible weakness of not knowing everything adter all.
For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.
I have had quite some dealings with him, both on and off the forum and never found him to be anything but helpfull and very correct. Perhaps this is because over the years I have learned to deal with ..ahem.. high-performance, high-maintenance engineers but... yeah: a loss to the forum.
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Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
Hi,
good comparision, but one short correction. The sampling rate of RTA and RTM is 5 GSa/s.
Markus
I have just shown sampling rate per channel not interleaved for all the scopes
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Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
Hi,
good comparision, but one short correction. The sampling rate of RTA and RTM is 5 GSa/s.
Markus
I have just shown sampling rate per channel not interleaved for all the scopes
Yes, this could be a fair way to compare sampling rate. But in this case the instruments from our competion also have 2.5 GSa/s per channel. You can send me a PN and I show you the parts from the data sheets.
Markus
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Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
Hi,
good comparision, but one short correction. The sampling rate of RTA and RTM is 5 GSa/s.
Markus
I have just shown sampling rate per channel not interleaved for all the scopes
Yes, this could be a fair way to compare sampling rate. But in this case the instruments from our competion also have 2.5 GSa/s per channel. You can send me a PN and I show you the parts from the data sheets.
Markus
yup, my bad :-+
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Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
That depends on your application.
Yes, and as I mentioned before that I want to use it mainly for embedded application decoding serial lines (say spi, i2c, can) and some general electronics work, looking at analog sensor data, etc.
It will be helpful if you could give me examples where deep memory or sampling rate will be important.
I'd go for deep memory for generic microcontroller use. If push comes to shove then you can buy a decent >1GHz on the used market. More bandwidth usually means more noise (both acoustic from the fan and on the signals) as well. 100MHz to 200MHz is enough bandwidth.
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Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?
Hi,
good comparision, but one short correction. The sampling rate of RTA and RTM is 5 GSa/s.
Markus
I have just shown sampling rate per channel not interleaved for all the scopes
Yes, this could be a fair way to compare sampling rate. But in this case the instruments from our competion also have 2.5 GSa/s per channel. You can send me a PN and I show you the parts from the data sheets.
Markus
yup, my bad :-+
A few more small tweaks - the way you show memory currently in the table is per channel (which makes sense as Tek doesn't offer an interleaved option) - in this case, the Keysight's are 2M, not 4M. You could also look at it as maximum memory depth available (allowing interleaving), which in that case it is correct for Keysight and Tek, but the R&S units would be 200M for the RTA4000, 80M for the RTM3000 and 200M for the RTE1000.
The Keysight's and Tek scope also offer UART decode/triggering (didn't see those listed for them).
-Rich
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The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).
If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time. Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.
There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.
What is wrong wit the reference traces?
You can't move, seperate or scale them. Most other DSOs have up to 4 seperate reference traces you can (at least) enable/disable. Moving, scaling and using the reference trace as input for math are very usefull additional features. On the Agilent MSO7104A you get a white line on screen and that's it and I doubt it is any different on the current Megazoom ASIC based scopes.
On later versions of Megazoom (at least on MSOX3104A), you can can scale the reference, offset it, and skew it in time. You can also save it and load it. But you can only display one of the two available reference memories at a time, and it's only 64kpts and not the full record length so zooming in on it is limited in resolution. And still no math functions.
It's only useful as a visual aid for comparisons and not much else. I'm not sure why they bothered to implement it except for the marketing check box.
EDIT: I took a quick look in the more recent Programmer Manuals. For at least the X4000 and X3000T, the manual lists the reference waveform as a possible input for MATH functions. So, presumably this issue has been addressed but I'd still want to see it in action.
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1. I am confused between two scopes series of Keysight 3000 and the 4000 series except for the bigger size screen what is the difference? :-//
I'm a little late to the party, but the 3000T and 4000 X-Series are very similar with a few notable exceptions. Also, the 4000 X-Series generally runs ~15% more $.
The 3000T X-Series perks:
- Display a math channel & FFT at the same time
- optional 8 digit counter + totalizer (vs. 5-digit counter)
- 1.6 ppm timebase accuracy (vs. 10)
The 4000 X-Series
- Bigger screen :-+
- optional dual channel WaveGen, larger output voltage
- 4 Match channels (vs. 2)
- 10 MHz reference in/out
- LAN/VGA standard (vs. optional)
- Can use 4 active probes without extra power supply (vs. 2)
- 3 USB host ports (vs. 2)
- 700 MHz probes included (vs. 500 MHz)
If you ever need 4 active probes at once (like for SMPS testing), the 4000 X-Series is a way better option.
Keep in mind that if you buy the Keysight 500 MHz scope the upgrade to 1 GHz is a replacement of the mainboard - there is no software/firmware upgrade.
It is a new board to go from 500 MHz to 1 GHz. But, buying the 500 MHz scope then upgrading to 1 GHz will cost you the same $ as just buying the 1 GHz from the beginning. So, the only cost is in lost lab time.
EDIT: I took a quick look in the more recent Programmer Manuals. For at least the X4000 and X3000T, the manual lists the reference waveform as a possible input for MATH functions. So, presumably this issue has been addressed but I'd still want to see it in action.
Confirmed
(http://)
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Hey just got this scope to play with for a week ;D
Any one wants to test any thing about the scope ??
Or have any suggestions ?